Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey. Brian Sibley

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      Whilst Craig’s sudden departure from Bad Taste is widely known to fans, Terry also asked to be written out. He was emigrating to Australia and couldn’t carry on, so I devised and shot an Ozzy death scene, which involved a basic impalement through the body with a metal spike. Several months later, Terry arrived back from an unhappy time in Oz and offered to rejoin the group. Fortunately things had not advanced that far in his absence, and I wrote him back in as if he’d never left!

      Doubtless there were times when people, witnessing the filming of Bad Taste, must have thought that they all had a screw or two loose!

      Playing two roles eventually

      led to Peter engaging in a cliff-top fight with himself, perilously filmed above Pukerua Bay. As Peter would later tell the fan-site, The Bastards Have Landed (named from Bad Taste’s defining quote), whilst the scene was most certainly dangerous, the results were less spectacular than he had envisaged: ‘I was always disappointed with the footage, because it felt way more scary being there, than it looked on film!’

      The fight – in which Peter was seen both bearded and clean-shaven – was shot in two sessions with the best part of a year between, rather as Elijah Wood and Sean Astin would eventually film their scene on the Cirith Ungol stairs in The Return of the King, while the fact that Ken Hammon was required to stand in for back-of-the-head-shots of Robert (or Derek as the case may be) meant that the sequence was filmed in a similar way to some of the scenes in The Lord of the Rings involving scale doubles. Unlike many moviemakers, whatever Peter Jackson asks or expects of an actor, the chances are he has sometime done something similar himself!

      Nevertheless, the overall situation with Giles’ Big Day was scarcely any less serious than when Peter had first approached the Film Commission: several more months work, an investment of a further $3,000 and still only an hour of completed film. It was, he said, ‘a bit like running on a treadmill.’ That said, he was convinced that it had all worked out for the best.

      ‘Peter has always had confidence,’ says Ken Hammon, ‘he’s always been optimistic. He has an unwavering sense that things will always work out.’ Or as Craig Smith puts it: ‘Peter was always going to be a film-maker. Failure was simply not an option.’

      Moreover, as Peter told Jim Booth, he considered the new version of the film as nothing short of an improvement:

      ‘The revamping of the film was a situation that was forced on me. I would like to say that I did it of my own choosing, but I can’t. It was the best thing that ever happened to the film. It made me look at the project from a different vantage point and it was only then that I saw it for what it was and was able to chop out the dead wood and inject new life into it. A valuable lesson has been learned.’

      It had indeed and it was one not easily forgotten…

      As for Craig Smith, he takes a similar line, albeit from a self-mocking perspective: ‘By taking my moral stand, it turned it into a damn sight better film. So, really, if it hadn’t been for me…!’

      Only one issue remained – apart from the need for money – and that was the title: Giles’ Big Day was clearly no longer appropriate. ‘After much banging of our heads,’ wrote Peter, ‘we finally came up with the moniker Bad Taste. This seems to sum it all up rather well. It has a double meaning. Not only does it describe the aesthetic qualities of the film, but [also] works in with the main plot device of a bunch of aliens with a taste for human meat…The other name that we considered for a while was Dirty Creatures, but Bad Taste it will be.’

      Bad Taste it was; and, when eventually completed, it would prove to be the film that launched the professional movie-making career of Peter Jackson.

       3 A MATTER OF TASTE

      ‘All of a sudden, out of the gloom, leaped this damn great gorilla!’ Bob Lewis, manager of the processing department of Wellington Newspapers, was minding his own business, passing the camera darkrooms, when he found himself unexpectedly confronted by an enormous ape. Convincing though it looked – and it was scarily authentic – the simian attacker was, in fact, only a man in a costume. At the time, he was just Peter Jackson, one of the paper’s photoengravers; later, however, he would become Peter Jackson, film director, whose movie projects would include a remake of that classic monster-movie, King Kong.

      Peter had begun making the gorilla costume whilst recuperating from the operation on the pilonidal cyst that had developed following his accident amongst the rock-pools, whilst playing Sinbad. Made of rubber and covered in hair, the ape suit was a highly impressive piece of work. One day, ‘for fun’ he decided to wear it into work. His first ‘victim’ was his manager, Bob (‘Mr’) Lewis: ‘I guess Peter thought,

      TOP RIGHT: My finished gorilla suit. It was never used in a movie but it started a series of life-changing events. bottom right: Building my gorilla suit in my bedroom. It was made from carved foam and glued together with carpet glue and latex. I was sleeping in a cloud of fumes every night. I think every Famous Monsters-inspired kid who has experimented with building monsters has similar stories to tell. I’m sure it alarmed my parents, who must have been copping the fumes as well since our house was so small.

      “Let’s see if we can give the boss a fright,” and he certainly succeeded because I must have jumped a foot in the air!’

      News of Peter’s escapade percolated up to the journalists on the Evening Post, who decided it would make a fun story. Staff photographer, Ian Mackley, snapped Peter in costume, emerging from the bushes onto the roadside near his home in Pukerua Bay. The photograph, which included a passing car (with presumably a seriously baffled driver!) eventually ended up on the front page of the Post under the headline ‘PETER THE APE MAKES THEM GAPE’!

      This startling image happened to catch the eye of Paul Dulieu, a props buyer on a television series entitled Worzel Gummidge Down Under. Based on the characters in Barbara Euphan Todd’s popular books about ‘The Scarecrow of Scatterbrook Farm’, the series had originated on British television in 1979. Written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (of Billy Liar fame) Worzel Gummidge starred former ‘Dr Who’, Jon Pertwee, as the scarecrow and Una Stubbs as Aunt Sally, his temperamental inamorata.

      In 1986, Worzel was given a new lease of life ‘down under’ with Pertwee and Stubbs reprising their roles in two twelve-episode series. A two-part story in the first series (‘Two Heads Are Better Than One’ and ‘Worzel to the Rescue’), involved a sinister character called The Traveller, some spooky voodoo-rituals and a couple of zombie-scarecrows – an appropriate storyline to have involved Peter Jackson!

      As a result of the photograph in the Post, this guy Paul Dulieu called me up and asked if I would be interested in making a couple of rubber voodoo dolls that were required for the scenes in which the Traveller enslaves Worzel. Later, they were required to burst into flame when Worzel’s guardian, The Crowman, rescues the scarecrow and releases him from the enchantment.

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